1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a sunroof apparatus for a vehicle.
2. Description of the Invention
Examples of conventional sunroof apparatuses include an apparatus described in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2006-131163 (hereafter, referred to as patent publication 1). The apparatus has a roof panel and a driving motor. The roof panel is disposed in a fixed roof of a vehicle so as to be opened and closed in a longitudinal direction of the vehicle via sliders coupled to driving wires. The driving motor is for driving the driving wires. The patent publication 1 discloses a construction in which the driving motor is disposed in front of an opening formed in the fixed roof.
Examples of shades each disposed below a roof panel include a so-called roller shade which is wound in the form of a roll around a winding shaft and contained (See, for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2010-36898 (hereafter, referred to as patent publication 2)). The patent publication 2 describes a technique of folding, when the shade is drawn from a winding shaft, opposite edge portions of the shade before guiding those edge portions in shade guide rails. This technique makes it impossible for the edge portions of the shade to come easily off from the shade guide rails. The edge portions of the shade that are folded have a backlash force to get back to their initial shape. The entire folded edge portions have the backlash force continuously. Thus, even if, for example, an external load is applied to part of the edge portions of the front shade to make that part almost come off from the shade guide, the backlash force in the areas of the edge portions that are adjacent to that part acts to prevent that part from coming off from the shade guide rail.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2008-137628, which is a prior art document on the roller shade, describes arranging a pair of winding shafts with an opening sandwiched therebetween in a longitudinal direction of a vehicle.
Regarding the layout of a driving motor for a roof panel and a winding shaft for a shade, these components should be displaced in relation to each other in a longitudinal direction of a vehicle since it is difficult to dispose them in vertically aligned relation to each other from the view point of space-saving in a sunroof apparatus. Although the present inventor was not able to find appropriate prior art documents on the layout of the driving motor and the winding shaft, he has noticed that if the roller shade of, for example, the patent publication 1 is applied to the construction disclosed in the patent publication 2 in which the driving motor for the roof panel is disposed in front of the opening, it is resulted that the driving motor and the shade winding shaft are arranged in the longitudinal direction of the vehicle. In that case, it is important that a predetermined amount of distance is ensured between the opposite ends of the opening in arranging the driving motor and the winding shaft.
The present invention is made in view of the above problem, and an object of the present invention is to provide a sunroof apparatus that realizes a mitigation in a reduction in the distance between the opposite ends of the opening, the reduction derived from the layout of a driving motor for a roof panel and a winding shaft for a shade.